Tag Archives: Micro Four Thirds

Chinese manufacturer Kipon has announced that this month it will start shipping a number of adapters for the Fujifilm X-Pro1. These include Leica/M-FX, Contax G-FX, Nikon-FX, and L39-FX. That’s right, withi this adapter you’ll be able to put incredible Leica glass on that X-Pro1.

The release appears to be machine translated, so I’m not quite sure what to make of “more nearly 40 models would be realeased within this month,” but assumedly it means that many more mount adapters are in the works, perhaps somewhere on the level with the company’s wide range of Micro Four-Thirds mounts.

Kipon’s hardware tends to be inexpensive, and an early report from the Chinese forum DCHome reports the price as just 390 Yuan, which is around 0. Fujifilm announced earlier this year they would be making their own M-mount adapter, but we don’t know what it’ll cost, but it’s expected in April.

SLR Magic announced three new lenses: a wide-angle pinhole lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras, a new 11mm f/1.4 Toy Lens for Penatx Q cameras and a Toy Bokehmorphic lens for Sony E mount. All three lenses are currently available for sale on eBay.

The SLR Magic x Toy Lens Pinhole lens is the first wide-angle pinhole lens that is compatible with all micro four third mount cameras. The field of view of this Pinhole Lens corresponds to a 24mm pinhole lens in 35mm format. It is the first pinhole lens to offer a protective glass to keep dust and moisture away from the digital sensor.

The SLR Magic x Toy Lens 11mm f/1.4 is a standard focal length lens that is compatible with all Q mount cameras. The field of view corresponds to a 60mm lens in 35mm format. The fast aperture combined with the close minimum focus distance of this lens allows for pleasing shallow depth of field effect and is a joy to use.

The SLR Magic x Toy Lens Bokehmorphic allows for creative bokeh effects. The lens is compatible with all E mount cameras. The field of view corresponds to a 42mm lens in 35mm format. It is great for creative bokeh or light painting for impressionistic photography.

All three Toy Lens models will be available from authorized SLR Magic dealers by April 2012.

Posted by PhotoRumors.com
This RSS feed is copyrighted and cannot be republished in any way without permission.
Follow PhotoRumors on Facebook and Twitter.

Can lots of resolution make up for a lack of optical zoom lenses? Nokia hopes to find out

Two years ago, Nokia exec Anssi Vanjoki claimed that phones would be making DSLRs obsolete sooner than later. That’s kind of crazy, of course, but it seems like they’re still actually working on making it happen. Their new 808 phone has a 1/1.2″ sensor with a total of 41-megapixels on-board. Yes, 41-megapixels.

It sounds a bit outlandish. In fact, some people were upset with Nikon for putting 36-megapixels on a full-frame sensor in their new D800. But, Nokia’s technology is a bit different than the brute-force megapixel attack of days past. The 808 can take photos up to 38-megapixels in resolution, checking in at 7728 x 5354, but it doesn’t seem like they intend for you to do that all too often. Their intention was to combine those pixels to make better 5- or 8-megapixel images.

According to reports, the Pure View has been in the works for more than five years, which helps explain why the new phone runs the now-ancient Symbian OS. The phone does what’s called “oversampling,” which combines pixels on the sensor in order to make clearer images at smaller resolutions. It’s not an entirely new concept, but it makes for an impressive headline.

Part of the driving force behind the development was the fact that fitting optical zooming lenses into a phone is difficult, if not impossible. So, the phone uses its megapixel power to let you “zoom” up to 3x without a loss of image quality, or so they claim. That “zoom” power gets pumped up to 4x in video mode, since full HD video only requires 1920 x 1080 resolution. When you zoom, you’re just selecting which area of the sensor to use the capture the image.

This is different than typical digital zoom because Nokia has limited the zoom range to prevent upscaling. It won’t zoom past the point where the final image resolution exceeds that of the input resolution.

The sensor isn’t the only piece of fancy photography kit that they put in the 808. The lens is a Carl Zeiss with a maximum Aperture of F/2.4 and has a full-frame equivalent of 26 or 28mm, depending on the aspect ratio you choose. Plus, the flash acts like a real camera flash, rather than a janky flashlight like some other smartphones.

In the end, it’s an interesting experiment. The sensor is still very small considering the resolution. It’s more in-line with what you’d find in a typical compact, which still makes is far smaller than anything you’ll find in a DSLR or even a Micro Four-Thirds camera.

If you dig, you can find a couple sample images online, but we’re always weary to trust those. We’ll be interested to get our hands on one of these at some point. Unfortunately, that will likely be a ways off as it’s only being officially released in Europe for the moment where it will cost 450 Euros.

Sigma announced the price of their 30mm f/2.8 EX DN lens for mirrorless cameras – 80 (MSRP). Expect the street price to be lower. The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 EX DN lens was announced during CES and is available in E and m4/3 mounts. The price of the 19mm f/2.8 EX DN lens is not yet announced.

Posted by PhotoRumors.com
This RSS feed is copyrighted and cannot be republished in any way without permission.
Follow PhotoRumors on Facebook and Twitter.

In an interview with AP, Ichiro Kitao (director of Panasonic’s digital stills camera business) reveled that Panasonic is working on a very high quality Micro Four Thirds camera:

“I want Panasonic to be known for very high-quality cameras, and we are currently restructuring the range of products that we offer to include a very high-end model, but we do not need to change our sensor size to do so. It already offers enough space for good resolution, and is actually not much smaller than APS-C anyway”

From the interview is clear that Panasonic has no future plans to produce cameras with a sensor larger than MFT.

Posted by PhotoRumors.com
This RSS feed is copyrighted and cannot be republished in any way without permission.
Follow PhotoRumors on Facebook and Twitter.

Related posts:

Panasonic’s new Micro Four Thirds camera to be released in September

Panasonic confirms the release of a new 25mm f/1.4 lens for Micro Four Thirds

Today Olympus finally announced its OM-series Micro Four Thirds camera, the OM-D E-M5. In chrome and without a battery grip, the camera actually looks a lot better than the leaked images we saw a couple days ago. Styled like an old school SLR, the E-M5 is a 16-megapixel camera with blazing 9fps continuous shooting, RAW capabilities, weatherproofing, 1080i video recording, the “world’s fastest autofocus” on any camera, 5-axis image stabilization, a 3-inch tilting LCD screen, an ISO range of 100-25,600, and a 1.44m dot electronic viewfinder. It’ll be available starting in April — though it’s already available for preorder on Amazon — at a price of ,000 for the body only, or 100 when bundled with a 14-42mm lens, or 300 when bundled with a 12-50mm lens.

Olympus takes their line of interchangeable-lens compacts one step beyond

The Olympus OM series cameras have been around for roughly 4 decades, but, much like almost everything else, it has now gone digital.

The boxy body plays well into the current trend of retro-styled cameras with fancy new-fangled features. Inside is a 16.1-megapixel Live MOS sensor that shifts in five directions in order to provide image stabilization. It’s paired with the TruePic VI image processing engine. That gives it what Olympus is calling an expanded dynamic range and a maximum ISO of 25,600.

Olympus claims that the new AF system is the “world’s fastest.” It uses the Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology (for which the adorable acronym is, of course, FAST) that debuted in the PEN E-P3. They’ve turned up the volume on it, though, pulling data from the chip at 240 fps. In single shot AF mode, it’s capable of pulling down 9 FPS at full resolution. The 3D AF tracking system is also equipped for moving subjects.

One of the big draws for this DSLR-type camera over its other PEN ILC siblings is the presence of the built-in electronic viewfinder. It refreshes at 120 FPS, so it should be very responsive. It offers 100-percent field of view (which is to be expected) and has a 1.15x magnification to help reduce fatigue.

The main display is a 3-inch OLED touch screen that tilts up and down, that also allows for touch shooting.

For video capture, the 5-way vibration reduction will be very welcomed, but the footage resolution falls short of the 1080p mark, opting instead for 1080i. However, you can get 60 fps out of it at maximum resolution, which should be nice for fast action or slow-motion.

Like many Olympus cameras at this level, the E-M5 is built with a fair bit of resilience. It uses a magnesium alloy frame and has internal seals to keep out damaging sand and moisture.

To complement the new camera, Olympus is also announcing a new lens in the M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm F/3.5-6.3 EZ, which is similarly dust and moisture resistant.

Other coming accessories include the HLD-6 Battery Grip, the FL-600R Flash, which also works as a video light, and the MMF-3 adapter, which allows standard Four Thirds compliant lenses to work on Micro Four Thirds compliant cameras.

When it comes to market, there will be three different package options for this camera. 99 will get you the body only in black or silver. ,099 will get you the body in black with the M.Zuiko Digital 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 II R lens. ,299 will earn the black or silver body with the new M.Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm F/3.5-6.3 EZ lens.

Going forward, Olympus has said that they’ll be releasing two more new lenses this year, including a 75mm F/1.8 and a 60mm F/2.8 macro. Pricing and specific availability on those are not yet available.

We’ll share our findings as soon as we can get our hands on an official production model.

Here are the first full photographs of Olympus’ new OM-D series Micro Four Thirds camera, the EM-5 (with an optional battery grip attached). The images were published to Amazon Japan before quickly being taken down. The camera is expected to become official on Wednesday, so we’ll have a full spec list in a couple days.